Letter: Racist citizens should receive civility training

IN light of racial tensions between students at the universities of Pretoria and the Free State boiling over this week, I feel I need to share my views on a solution.

I am a Chinese South African who was born in the apartheid era, so I know what discrimination feels like. Thankfully, our community shielded us from most of the hurt and spent most of their time encouraging us to get a good education.

But, inevitably, we were exposed to ignorant, arrogant racists in our businesses – the hurt runs deep. The approach taken by the Chinese community in PE seems to have been “let bygones be bygones”.

It makes me very angry to know that arrogant racists still feel entitled to disrespect “non-white” people. I marvel that the transition of power wasn’t more violent in South Africa, and wonder how people today still put up with discrimination.

It was freeing to live abroad for many years in a society where people are respectful to one another irrespective of the colour of their skin and background. What a great feeling to be treated as just a person and not as a Chinese person.

This demonstrates how a civilised, mature society works; how was this achieved? Through education at home and at school – by teaching children and adults how to treat others with respect and dignity.

So the solution I propose is civility training – for ALL South Africans. The obligation of each should be to treat their fellow South African with respect and dignity. Everyone should learn to consider how their behaviour impacts others and the acceptable way to communicate with others.

This should be taught to all school levels and even via radio and TV to adults. South Africa needs this to become a way of life. Racism from all sides has to stop.